Well, the first week of my third term is complete and I have met all my new students.  I am not teaching any Memory classes this term, rather all the classes I have been assigned are mid- to upper-level reading classes (Par and Eagle) and, this is most exciting, three different Master Level classes: Masters Comp. 100 & 105  and Lit. Project 100 (Wartime Literature).  This first week has been a real challenge since I am prepping for so many different levels (Par is the only class I have previous experience with) and I am scheduled to teach 27 hours a week (as opposed to the usual 24) this term. I feel confident one moment and completely incompetent the next. Ah, but such is usually the case when facing difficult but worthwhile challenges. I only wish I’d hadn’t had a head-cold all week; it’s the third one in six months! Everyone says it’s the poor air quality. Still other people tell me it’s due to the change in seasons.  I believe another contributing factor is the exposure to so many different people, mostly kids, in a week’s time. Suffice it to say, I am pretty tired and am looking forward to a Sunday afternoon nap.

Comp. 100 is fundamentals and very similar to Expository Writing. Even though my students are Middle-school aged, they will be responding to college level texts. Sometimes I’m not entirely sure they are mature enough, intellectually or emotionally, to respond to some issues, but then they always surprise me. The students will be writing a variety of short essays and learning about different genres of writing.

Comp. 105 is all about argumentation and is taken only after a student has had experience with Comp. 100. Ethos, Logos and Pathos, here we come!

Lit. 100 involves Wartime Literature and includes the following on its book list: When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park,  Hiroshima by John Hersey, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien and The Book Thief by Marksu Zusak. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into some of these books, some for the second or third time.

Did I mention our terms are thirteen weeks long? With all these books to cover, I think this third term (second to last one here) is sure to go quickly.

When I’m not prepping or teaching, I am writing. My current writing schedule (which was on a semi-hiatus this week) involves writing, free-writing and generating new work in the mornings from approximately 10:00 AM to noon Monday through Friday, with one “floater” day to be used for miscellaneous unexpected events that necessarily come up. I used to spend one hour on Monday and one hour on Friday nights, previously my evenings off, to work on revisions. However, since I no longer have Monday evening’s off, I plan to work on revisions for two hours on Friday nights this term, as I have all day Fridays off.

Sometimes I do a little writing on the weekends – usually blogging – if so moved or inspired, and have begun a writers group here in Pyeongchon, by request. We’ve only met once, but plans are underway for another meeting later in March. Since April is National Poetry Month, I am hoping to recruit a couple of fellow writers to participate in the Poem-a-Day challenge with me.

I’ve been reading voraciously since arriving in Korea, but this has lately been slowed as I try to work my way through Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, a read I admittedly am  undertaking more because it is an “important” work than for pure pleasure – though I find parts of it interesting enough. The political backdrop is actually more interesting to me than the interrelationships among the characters, surprisingly enough. It does inspire me, however, to make notes and observations of the various individuals I’ve met here which I believe will make great character profiles for some novel that could be written at some future date. The novel in my head is of a group ex-pats living and working in Korea and the tales of their travels, relationships and escapades.  Sort a modern Hemingway/Fitzgerald-esque novel with bared secrets and slightly dysfunctional ways of looking at the world. Of course, the novel in my head is interesting and great. Getting it onto paper is another thing all together, isn’t it? Character profiles will be enough for now, though.